This week's words are created using combining forms. What are combining forms? You can think of them as the Legos of language.
As the name indicates, a combining form is a linguistic atom that occurs only in combination with some other form. This other form could be a word, another combining form, or an affix (a prefix or suffix). Unlike a combining form, an affix can't attach to another affix. When coining a new word, these ready-made building blocks of the language come in handy. Let's say we need a new insult word, a fancy word to describe someone as brainless. We could start with the ceno- (empty), add -cephalic (relating to the head) to it, and our new word is ready: cenocephalic. This week we'll see words made using these combining forms: ceno- (empty), endo- (within), seti- (bristle), nocti- (night), and geo- (earth). Happy word crafting! cenotaph (SEN-uh-taf) noun A tomb or a monument in honor of a person (or a group) whose remains are elsewhere. [Via French and Latin, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos (empty) + taphos (tomb).] Pictures of cenotaphs around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenotaph Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=cenotaph -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "Then I joined the throngs at the cenotaph inscribed NEVER AGAIN, at an eternal flame above a reflecting pool, and at the crane-festooned statue of Sadako Sasaki, a bomb victim who died at the age of twelve while attempting to fold a thousand paper cranes in the hope this would prolong her life." Samuel Day Jr.; Two Hiroshimas; The Progressive (Madison, Wisconsin); Aug 1994. A few messages from our sponsors: Are you settling for Braindrizzles when you really need to Brainstorm? Generate more ideas, better ideas with "Think Better" http://tenkaizen.com The University of Scranton is NCATE-accredited, 100% online and ready to help you earn your Master's in Education. Visit http://UScranton.com/WS ............................................................................ Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662) Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/cenotaph.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/cenotaph.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/cenotaph.html This message was sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
